Performance-based publisher ratings and the visibility/impact of books: Small fish in a big pond, or big fish in a small pond?

Abstract This study compares publisher ratings to the visibility and impact of individual books, based on a 2017 data set from three Nordic performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) (Denmark, Norway, Finland). Although there are Journal Impact Factors (JIFs) for journals, is no similar indicator book publishers. National lists used instead account general “quality” leading institutional rewards. But, just as JIF not recommended proxy “citedness” paper, rating also an book. We introduce small fish in big pond versus metaphor, where “fish” “the pond” represents its publishing house. investigate how books fit this metaphorical continuum, using WorldCat holdings (visibility) Google Scholar citations (impact), test other variables determine their predictive value with respect these two indicators. Our statistics show that levels do have when held constant. has implications PRFS evaluations general, well ongoing developments related newly proposed international registry.